


The Naming of Dinosaurs

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A Monthly Rumbelling, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff Family, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Rumbelle - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 10:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15906306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: With his sibling very close to arriving, Gideon thinks up some rather interesting potential names for his new brother or sister, and Belle reflects on her pregnancy as Rumpel helps her though early labour.Written for the @a-monthly-rumbelling prompt: "Hands, Warmth, Gentle"





	The Naming of Dinosaurs

“Uff.”

Belle sat down heavily on the sofa as a small foot kicked her from the inside. She hadn’t been intending to sit down, in fact she had only just levered herself up off the sofa in the first place, so the sudden movement caught Gideon’s eye.

“Are you all right, Mama?” he asked, coming over from where he had been re-enacting Jurassic Park in the corner. At least, Belle assumed that it was Jurassic Park from the amount of plastic dinosaurs – she was at a loss to explain the toy cement mixer though. She nodded.

“Yes, I’m all right. The baby’s just kicking me, that’s all.”

Gideon’s brow furrowed. “Why is it kicking you? That’s not very nice.”

“Well, he or she is just stretching their legs a bit,” Belle explained. “They don’t have a lot of room in there.”

Gideon looked sternly at her belly, now thirty-seven-and-a-half weeks along and ready to drop at any moment.

“But your tummy’s huge!” he protested. “The baby has lots of room!”

“You’d be surprised.” Belle leaned back as the little foot made itself known again. “Babies aren’t as small as you think. You were about so big when you were born.” She held her hands apart and Gideon looked horrified.

“How is it going to get out?” he whispered fearfully.

“That’s something for me and Papa to worry about,” Belle said. She winced as the kick came again, and took one of Gideon’s hands, placing it over the spot where his sibling’s foot was. He broke into a grin.

“I can feel it! Hello foot! Stop kicking Mama, you’re hurting her. You have to be good to Mama.”

Amazingly, Gideon’s words seemed to do the trick and the baby calmed down.

“Thanks, Gid. I think you told him what’s what.”

“Is it definitely a boy? I think I want a brother more than a sister.”

“Oh yes? And why would that be?”

Gideon gave the matter serious thought before coming out with his answer. “Girls don’t like dinosaurs.”

“Who says that girls don’t like dinosaurs?”

“Neal Nolan does. He says that’s why Robyn never plays with us. Because she doesn’t like dinosaurs.”

Belle considered this logic for a moment.

“Have you ever actually asked Robyn if she would like to play with you?”

Gideon thought for a moment then shook his head.

“Maybe you ought to try that. You might find that girls like dinosaurs after all.”

Unconvinced, Gideon got up on the sofa beside her. “I still think that a brother would be better,” he said sagely. “I’ve only thought up boy names.”

“And what would you call your brother?” Belle asked. She and Rumpel had narrowed names down to Stephen for a boy and Thea for a girl, but she was interested to hear Gideon’s suggestions.

“Optimus,” Gideon said without hesitation. “After Optimus Prime.”

Belle bit her tongue to stop her from laughing out loud at her son’s decision, as she could see that he was in deadly earnest and she didn’t want to discourage his fertile imagination.

“I’m not sure that Optimus is a good name for a human, Gideon. A Transformer, yes, but not a human boy.”

“All right then. What about Rex? Like a T-Rex!”

Belle nodded. “Yes, Rex would be better.”

“And if it turns out to be a sister after all, we can call her Triceratops!”

“Perhaps not.”

The key turned in the front door and Gideon rushed off to greet his father.

“Papa, can we call my sister Triceratops?”

Rumpel came into the living room looking slightly perplexed.

“Have I missed something?” he asked faintly.

“Gideon’s thinking up names for his sibling,” Belle explained. “It’s all right, I’ve already vetoed Optimus Prime.”

“Right.” Rumpel sat down in Gideon’s vacated space on the sofa beside her, and Belle swung her feet up onto his lap, wiggling her toes. Rumpel raised an eyebrow at her.

“I take it that this is a request for me to rub your feet.”

Belle nodded. “Yes please. Every time I try to get up, the baby starts kicking, so I’ve just accepted that I’ll be stuck on this sofa for the rest of my pregnancy and I might as well get comfortable.”

Rumpel gave a good-natured chuckle and pulled her socks off, pressing a gentle thumb against her instep and immediately making her feel better. Belle groaned with relief. Rumpel had always known how to give the best foot massages and now was no different.

“Maybe Stegosaurus would be better,” Gideon mused, coming back into the room.

“I’m not sure that naming your sister after dinosaurs is a good idea, Gideon,” Rumpel said. Gideon just pouted.

“Mama said no Transformer names, you said no dinosaur names. I just want my brother or sister to have an interesting name!”

Belle and Rumpel just looked at each other as Gideon went back to his toys (the function of the cement mixer in the proceedings remained unclear).

“Well, I can see his point,” Rumpel said. “I’m not quite sure that I agree with him, but I can see it.”

“The less exotic the name, the better,” Belle said. “I don’t want anything about this baby to be extraordinary.”

She thought back to nine months ago when she had first discovered that she was pregnant again, and the paralysing fear she had felt that something was going to happen, just as it had happened with Gideon. Although she and Rumpel were in a much stronger place than they had been before and she knew that nothing would go wrong in that respect, the paranoia still remained. Storybrooke had calmed down in the intervening five years, but with so much magic flying about, nothing could be taken for granted, including the safety of her unborn child. There had been nothing abnormal about her pregnancy so far, and she was gaining in confidence that nothing would go wrong, but that fear still remained.

The warmth of Rumpel’s hands on her feet made her closer her eyes, falling into a doze that only jerked back into full wakefulness when a tightening pain pulled through her abdomen.

“Belle?” Rumpel looked at her, concerned, and Gideon’s head popped up from behind the veritable fortress of dinosaurs that he had created.

“Mama? Are you all right?”

“I think our little Triceratops might be putting in an appearance sooner rather than later,” she said to Rumpel. “I just had a contraction. It might be nothing, but since I’m so close to due… Can you handle supper and bedtime, love?”

“Of course.” Rumpel placed a hand lightly on her stomach. “Stay safe, little one,” he murmured before kissing her bump. “Come on, Gideon. Let’s get you ready for bed. Mama needs to relax a bit.”

Although he may not have picked up on precisely what was going on, Gideon seemed to sense that something important was happening, and he followed Rumpel out of the room without a fuss.

By the time Gideon was in bed – although far too excited to sleep with the prospect of a brother or sister coming comparatively soon – the contractions were coming regularly, and Belle was certain that this was the real thing and not just Braxton Hicks. She had already called Granny at the diner to get her to come over and babysit Gideon whilst she and Rumpel got to the hospital, and now Belle was standing in the kitchen, leaning heavily on the counter as Rumpel rubbed her back.

Despite the pain that she was feeling, Belle was surprised to find that she wasn’t afraid. All the fear that she had been holding in herself throughout her pregnancy, fears that she had shared with Rumpel and those that she hadn’t, were gone. She was so focussed on bringing her baby into the world that she didn’t have space in her mind for anything else.

“I’m beginning to think that Triceratops is a good name,” she grumbled as another wave of pain hit and she scrabbled for Rumpel’s hand to squeeze. “They certainly feel as big as a dinosaur right now.”

Rumpel laughed and Belle glared at him.

“It’s all right for you. You’re not the one who’s going to be doing all the pushing.”

“Belle, my love.” He pushed her sweaty hair back from her face and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “If I could take that pain on myself, you know that I would.”

Belle nodded. “I know. I think that might be why I love you so much.” She knew that Rumpel could snap his fingers and make the pain go away altogether, but he had not suggested it. He knew what her thoughts were towards magical intervention at the best of times, and in this moment, so precarious and with so much at stake, it had not crossed his mind even though she could see from the little frown lines in his forehead that her pain was concerning him.

The doorbell rang and Rumpel went to let Granny in. Belle was suddenly reminded that this would be the first time that Rumpel would be present for the birth of his child, and all the memories of that awful time during her first pregnancy resurfaced without warning after she had been doing so well to put them to the back of her mind. She burst into tears.

“Belle?” Rumpel’s voice was so soft and gentle that it just set off fresh floods in her. He didn’t ask her what was wrong, just enveloping her in his arms and holding her close.

“Please don’t go,” she whispered. “I want you here. I want you to be there with me. I need you there.”

“I’m not going anywhere, darling. Now, let’s go to the hospital and meet our little dinosaur.”

Belle smiled, but she did not let go of him, still needing the warmth of his embrace to ground her in the here and now. This was the present and the future, not the past, and as long as she had Rumpel, she knew that everything was going to be all right.


End file.
